Raine Light, Aspiring Martian

A Mars One applicant explains why she wants to take a one-way trip to Mars

By: Viviane Fairbank, Staff Writer

“Only five words?” Raine Light asked, after being told to describe herself simply.

There was a long pause.

“Reliable, adventurous, trustworthy, honest, good friend, communicator,” the Mars One applicant finally decided – seven words, none of which are specifically included in the list of characteristics that Mars One, an organization sending four humans to Mars by 2023, is looking for in its candidates.

Mars One says on its website the selection of future Martians is based on the following qualities: resiliency, adaptability, curiosity, the ability to trust, and creativity or resourcefulness.  An advisor in charge of the selection process, Raye Kass, says “the key factor related to all these qualities is attitude.

And Light definitely has attitude — of the sweet but determined kind. Since Light’s discovery of the Mars One mission April of this year, she has started a “Going to Mars” blog and has been interviewed by CBC’s The Current, Hamilton’s Matt Holmes Show and The List.

Light’s enthusiasm is overwhelming. And yet, Light’s goal during her interviews appears not to be bringing attention to her own candidacy, but instead, to promote Mars One’s overall campaign.

“One of the key questions that I’ve been asked is, ‘What do you fear the most?’” says Light. “My honest response is that I fear that the project is not going to follow through. At some point it will get cancelled, or just won’t get funding, or for whatever reason it just won’t happen.”

Light hopes that constant publicity for Mars One will help them to acquire the funding that they need – which, for now, is approximately $6 billion for the first four Mars settlers, and $4 billion for each group after that, according to The List. Not a small amount to be raised through campaigning.

Part of Mars One’s funding will in fact come from the operation of the mission itself – the process will be filmed for the world to see, as a sort of reality television show.

Bas Landsorp, co-founder and CEO of Mars One, tells The List, “That sounds like a lot of money and of course it is a lot of money, but if you compare it to the reviews of another major media event like the Olympic games, it really is not so much. The International Olympic committee in the Olympic games in London had revenues of… more than $1 billion per week, just because the world is watching.”

So travel to Mars may really happen, if we all watch it on TV, and Light says she’s prepared.

Her life has certainly been full of travel already.

“My childhood was unique in that we were always moving, we never really stayed in one place longer than three to four years,” says Light, who has moved with her family to France, the United States and Trinidad and Tobago, among other places.

“It really does have an effect on my dedication and my desire to go out and do this,” says Light about her travel habits. “[My brother and I] learned to be very self-reliant and very open and tolerant of different cultures and people and experiences. Taking that experience and putting it into effect is one of the reasons I’m very keen on doing this.”

Light has always been interested in astronomy, but quietly. It was only when she read about the Mars One project in a news article that she decided, “Why not?”

“I’ve said in the past that [my application] was kind of on a whim,” says Light. “But it wasn’t so much on a whim as it was a spontaneous ‘Holy cow… I want to be a part of this.’”

Her application process, following a $33 fee, included about five pages of essay questions about her past, different situations that she has found herself in, and her reasons for applying to the program. Light also shot a one-minute video describing her candidacy, which is the only part of her application that can be seen on the Mars One website.

It took Light about a day and a half to complete her submission, a length that she blames on her own perfectionism. She rewrote her answers more than once before submission. This meticulous enthusiasm is what Light thinks will help her to stand out from the thousands of other Mars One applicants. “I don’t know if I am any more of a good candidate than anyone else. But I would be giving it 110 per cent,” she affirms.

This extra 10 per cent of effort can already be seen on Light’s WordPress blog, “Going to Mars,” which she started when she first found out about Mars One. Since the blog’s start in mid-April, Light has been recording her reflections on Mars, while also posting links to relevant articles and websites.

Mars One’s widely circulated introduction video, “Mars 2023: Inhabitants Wanted,” was her fourth post.

It calls for people of all nationalities to apply for the one-way trip to Mars, set to take place in 2023. No scientific background is required for candidacy, simply good health, psychological stability, and the capacity for self-reflection, among other qualities, says the Mars One website.

Of the hundreds of thousands of applicants, some will be invited to meet with a Mars One committee to conduct an interview. The selection process after that will be centered on the basis of reality TV.

Those with successful interviews, about 20 to 40 people in every country, will participate in a series of challenges testing their abilities, which will be broadcast internationally, allowing the audience to select one winner per country. Mars One will also select its own winners to continue with the selection process.

The next stage sees participants showing their capacity to live in the harsh environment of Mars and to work under different likely circumstances. A replica of the Mars settlement will be built on earth, where once again, television crews will be broadcasting the events internationally.

In the end, six groups of four will be selected to train for a one-way trip to Mars, and four people will take the first trip, with two to follow every two years.

“The problem that I see with [this process] and reality TV is that it has a very short nature,” says Light. “People’s attention spans will be short; they’ll like a show for a couple seasons but then something bigger, more interesting comes along.”

Nevertheless, the fact that the entire world is watching is one of the reasons that Mars One expects its endeavour to be a success. “The Mars One project is idealistically set on colonization,” explains Light. Mars One’s website says that the organization’s goal is to “unite humanity” in exploration, similar to the effect that Apollo 11 had in 1969.

Light, who is currently studying to become a paramedic and working as a first aid and management operative in a construction site, is 29 this year. If she’s accepted as a Mars One participant, the required 10 years of training for the program will make her 39 by the time she takes the expected seven-month one-way trip to the red planet.

And Light says she cannot imagine anything changing her mind during those years.

“I’m really excited and passionate about it right now, and if things start to pick up and become more of a reality, then obviously I will be on board,” she says. “It will take something really big for me to change my mind.”

Before departure, if Light does get accepted, she hopes to visit every country on this planet at least once – wanderlust cannot simply be abandoned for 10 years of astronaut training.

Yet, it does seem to be satisfied by a one-way trip to Mars.

Viviane Fairbank is a writer, photographer, and willing university student, desperately waiting to travel around the world. 

Feature and banner images courtesy of FlyingSinger